


rompiendo la fila si tú te vas

by Lire_Casander



Series: queda en manos de mi memoria [2]
Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Abuse, Angst, Exorcisms, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Physical Abuse, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 15:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18640894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander
Summary: five times michael guerin felt a drifter, and the one time he chanced a settler





	rompiendo la fila si tú te vas

**Author's Note:**

> Even before finishing writing [aunque me estrelle entre las rocas](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468769), I knew I would be writing this companion piece, just because Michael simply wouldn’t let me be without his own starring fic. Again a monster of a story, but I hope that you’d like this one as much as you liked the first one. 
> 
> Fantastic [See_Addy_Write](https://archiveofourown.org/users/See_Addy_Write) took her time to read over it and catch every little mistake I'd made. And this amazing [TheballetslipperandTheblackhoodie21](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheballetslipperandTheblackhoodie21) has been so supportive about this that I can't be happier of having her in my life. Thanks for your neverending support and help!
> 
> I do not own the characters or the lines you might recognize, they’re all The CW and the Roswell NM writers. Title and excerpts from DVicio & Taburete’s collaborative song _5 Sentidos_ , which I do not own either. Translations for the excerpts in the notes by the end

**one. yo nunca he sido un santo, no vendo lecciones de contrabando**

They are given names just the day after they are found wandering around the desert naked and frozen. Since neither of them can really talk and the gist of human communication is alien to them, there is really nothing they can do to stop the woman from picking up names and sticking those to them.

At first, he doesn’t realize they are names, because the sounds are foreign and don’t make sense. But the woman – a middle aged blond human with big, bright green eyes – insists on talking and calling for them, and in the end he learns to associate the sound _Michael_ with a call of his own, and _Max_ and _Isobel_ as the names his siblings have been given.

He doesn’t care anymore. It’s been too long since he last was called his true name, back on their home planet, before everything came down to ashes in the heat of battle. His memories are scarce and confusing, and the more time he spends on Earth, the quicker they fuse one into another until all he has inside his head is a chaos he cannot control.

One day, Max and Isobel – for he isn’t calling them by any other name, having long since forgotten about how they used to be, _who_ they used to be – are swept away from the group home with so much fuss Michael thinks the humans have finally found out that the three of them are not from Earth. He remains standing in front of the main door for hours, waiting for his siblings to come back and take him with them. They surely wouldn’t have left him behind – not of their own volition, so Michael is convinced they are trapped somewhere, unable to get themselves out to return to him.

They never come back, and although he doesn’t shed a single tear, Michael feels something break inside of him. He is scared and belittled, unable to defend himself from the odds outside since he doesn’t have the support of Isobel’s mind and Max’s strength.

He turns into himself, letting the chaos grow and take over his own mind until there is nothing left of the kid he was once on his home planet; instead, he’s been replaced with a shell of an impersonated human child.

The beacon is the only thing he sees for a long time after he is left alone in the group home. A set of three distinctive symbols, mashed together in a way he cannot explain, all over the walls and the furniture in bright reds and greens. Just like it didn’t work when he was trying to call his parents when he was found in the desert with Max and Isobel, it isn’t working to bring his siblings back to him in his darkest nights.

He is alone.

He tries to speak but doesn’t know the words. He doesn’t understand anything he’s been told, but he can read the faces hovering over him with concern turning into fear as the days roll by into weeks and months, and he is left alone in a corner of the group home living room, forbidden to pick up a marker or a crayon, left with itching hands and an empty heart.

Somehow, through the weeks of observation he’s been doing, Michael manages to get a hold of language and communication, and speaks his first words. He does it out of boredom, because there is no one else around with whom he can talk using his brain, the way he used to with Max and Isobel, and it elicits a good response from the blonde woman who gave him his human name, so he keeps speaking just to see her smile broadening.

The day the group home celebrates the first anniversary of him being found, Michael receives a very special gift, or so the blonde woman – whose name he has yet to find out – tells him in a whisper. 

“You’re being sent to a real home, Michael,” she says, brushing a loving hand through his wild curly hair as if trying to tame it. “We have found you someone who will love you the way you deserve, and everything will be fine from now on, you’ll see. It is in Albuquerque, but you’ll be fine. You will be happy.”

He nods tentatively, because he doesn't really know how to reply that all he ever wants is to go back home, wherever it is, but the memories from home are quickly fading away in his mind as he replaces them with new feelings – pain, strife, the feeling of not belonging, the rush of being left behind – and there is nothing he can do to keep everything bottled up inside. 

He wants to stay in Roswell, he wants to remain as close to Max and Isobel as he can although he cannot feel them anymore, because being even further away from them might cause permanent damage to his already chaotic mind.

He doesn’t say anything, and the blond woman packs his scarce belongings and sends him up to a life he will forever regret. Albuquerque means drugs and smoke and weird hours – no school, no friends and a too far away place to be called _home_. It also becomes a safe haven of sorts – a place where he can unleash his powers and lift the little furniture around the caravan where he lives nowadays without anyone really noticing, everyone far too up in their own drugged world to care about the undergrown boy who was sent to them to pay for the bills no one has the guts to find a job to actually pay for. He becomes acquainted with acetone and its ability to grant him quiet in a mind full of confusion one day when his foster parents leave the bottle they use to cook meth unattended. He knows he is never letting anyone keep him apart from that substance that gives him calm.

 

Less than ten months later, Michael is moved to Santa Fe, to yet another caravan, to yet another unsuited man. His name is Hank Guerin, and he drinks his pain away in alcohol the same way Michael has learned to lean on acetone to get through his days. This time he goes to school, albeit his attendance is scarce, and if he squints his eyes he can even see past the daily beatings he endures just because he is too tired to help Hank with another glass of whatever hard liquor he’s into these days.

But Hank gives him more than a home and some whipping. He gives him his name one day on a whim, too drunk to think it through and yet too sober _not_ to, and Michael will be forever grateful to the man for gifting him with something that is his and his alone. 

“So what do you say we go to court and ask for you to have my name?” Hank asks that day, words slurred and breath hitching. “That way you won’t be a foster kid again. You could be _mine_.”

He has never had a name before, not one who wasn’t forced upon him. This he can choose, this he can fight for. Even if Hank isn’t his favorite person in the world, Michael doesn’t need to ponder his decision. No one has ever cared enough for him to actually ask before making decisions for him, and at ten years old he feels oddly liberated. So he accepts, and the paperwork gets through for adoption just shy of a month before Hank finds himself driving a too fast car while too drunk to function.

When the blonde woman from the group home comes talk to him that night, Michael knows something bad has happened. He mourns the loss of the only father figure he’s ever had and he moves on with a little help of the nail polish remover he finds while rummaging through the blonde woman’s purse when she’s not looking. 

Hank gave him a good gift, and he also frees Michael. For he is coming back to Roswell, and Roswell means Max and Isobel. He won’t have to be alone ever again, alone in a brave new world that is too savage on little beings like himself.

He has to grow up, he has to be braver, bolder – he has to stop leaning on other people to help him because they always let him down. They always beat him, or leave him, or get themselves killed. Michael has learnt from a very tender age that he has to be alone to win the wars he picks to fight.

**two. luché con mis fantasmas, todos los que algún día me gritaban que renunciara a todo lo que he sido**

The first time his anger spirals out of control, there is no one around. It takes him by surprise, the sheer force with which the clock on the wall swings wildly, the madness of the chairs scratching a line on the floor. He doesn’t remember what triggered it, because as soon as he realizes the furniture is moving on its own volition, everything stops dead on its tracks and all that is left is a wracked living room. He hastily tries to tidy it up a bit before his new foster parents notice something is out of place.

There is a second time when he is scolded for having spilled a cup of tea on an image of Virgin Mary that sits beautifully still on the mantelpiece over the fireplace. He hasn’t intended to be so clumsy, but he is still learning his whereabouts with his growing limbs – he is a teenager, after all – and he just tripped over his feet on a perfectly smooth surface. He wants to talk back to his foster mother, because he hasn’t done it on purpose, but she warns him with a look not to say a word. He doesn’t follow her command, and earns himself a slap that reverberates in the silent living room. Control slips, anger rises, and the stained image begins floating around.

For a moment everyone freezes, and then his foster mother exclaims, “It’s a miracle!” falling to her knees in front of the mantelpiece, crossing herself over and over and muttering prayers his ears don’t really register. He thinks he’s saved, and promises himself to be more careful – he can’t risk being sent back in the system now that he’s managed to be sent back to Roswell, to Max and Isobel.

Once he’s lost count of how many times he’s let his gift slip recklessly out of his control, he lucks out. Things have been rough the past couple of months – he has become a bit of a rebel and has arguments with everyone in the house, so he keeps getting grounded and punished in very creative ways he doesn’t really want to think about – and it all comes to a head by the end of May, barely a week before their self-appointed fourteenth birthday. 

This time he is on the verge of going crazy with rage. He can’t find his notebook, the one where he has been writing incessantly about equations and numbers – also the occasional drawing of the ship he wants to build to take his siblings out of this planet as soon as he can – and it is a dangerous thing to be lost in this house. He’s searched _everywhere_ for it, and he hasn’t found it yet. He is starting to panic when a light seems to pop up in his mind and he heads towards his foster sister’s room.

And there she is, legs propped up in her bed while she sits on the floor, perusing through _his_ notebook and creaking some pages. He can hear one of the sheets being torn and before he can think better of it he is stomping into the bedroom and ripping his notebook from her hands.

“What are you doing?” he screeches as he retreats. He is hovering over her, but she doesn’t seem fazed.

“Father said you weren’t allowed to have a diary, and I found out you had one,” she states shrugging. “I am just doing what I’m supposed to do – what God expects me to do.”

“Keep your filthy hands off my belongings,” he barks as he cradles the notebook close to his chest. “You don’t have any right to take my things from me. See? My name’s written all over the cover,” he all but growls, taking a step closer to her in an attempt to make his point clear. 

“But you don’t really have anything,” she sneers, giving back as much snarl as she’s receiving. “You don’t even have a name that’s yours, _Guerin_.”

And that sets him off, because he’s fought so hard to have something that’s his and only his, and until now he has been hanging on a thread with his insecurities – with knowing he doesn’t have a past, he doesn’t know about his future, and his present sucks – but he has had one thing for sure, and it is the name given to him at the group house when he was seven, and the last name a drunk forced him to accept when he turned ten. 

As much as neither word has been chosen by him, they both give him a sense of belonging he has never truly felt outside his bond with Max and Isobel. 

He loses it, and even the bed sags and lifts from the ground when his yells take the best of him and he allows the rage to reign in his mind. He doesn’t register the fear in his foster sister’s voice as she calls for help, he doesn’t notice the furniture acting wild or the door swinging open. He is only conscious of the chaos overcoming his senses, rendering him numb and empty. 

A hand lands on his neck and pulls him out of his trance with a slap. The furniture falls back into place with low thuds, and he heaves. The pain inside reaches a peak when he hears, “Have you seen it, daddy? He’s like, possessed?”

“I think he might be, honey,” his foster father replies, hand never leaving his neck. “We allowed the devil to enter our house, but we are the ones making it leave this kid’s body.”

Somehow, it doesn’t soothe his fear when the hand guides him back to his room. He hears the lock engage from the outside, and he could break it open but he feels so tired, so alone, that he just sits on the floor against the door and lets the tears come. A few hours later, salty tears dried on his cheek and exhausted soul, he hears the key inside the lock turning, and he backs away from the door, utterly scared. The pain inside has subsided but there is something in his gut telling him it will return.

“Michael,” his foster mother says as she enters the room, looking at him as if he’s a deer caught in the light. “I know this isn’t easy on you, but I promise we will help you feel better. I promise you will be fine again really soon.”

He wants to scream that he is fine the way he is, but he is tugged out of his bedroom – out of his sacred sanctuary – and into the living room that looks nothing like the place where they usually watch TV together and a lot like a scene out of a horror movie. There is a man standing in the middle of the room, the dim light hiding his features; the couches have been removed and placed against the further walls, and there is a circle engraved in a star-shaped drawing on the floor. His step falters. He doesn’t want to step further into the room, but his foster mother pushes him a bit. “It is for your own good, Michael,” she says softly. “Father Rogers will help you get rid of the demon that lives inside of you, and you will be normal again. I am just so happy you ended up with us, because we can help you be human again. We have God on our side, and after this session, you will have Him too.”

He doesn’t reply, doesn’t budge, although he wants to tell her that he is not human – he doesn’t even _want_ to be human. The man – Father Rogers – steps forward and stretches a hand his way, effectively catching his wrist and pulling him into the circle. When he is in the middle of the room he finds out the dim light is cast by several candles placed around the circle, and briefly he thinks of the danger they represent in the not so unlikely case he loses his temper and starts throwing things in the air. A fire would really not help his case.

He doesn’t have the time to think more of it, because Father Rogers is muttering some nonsensical words without letting go of his arm, and it hurts him where the priest’s slender fingers dig into his skin. Suddenly a heavy-looking cross comes into his line of vision, and isn’t it funny because he has been actively looking down at the floor.

“By the power of God, I rebuke you,” Father Rogers repeats over and over again, as his head feels fuzzy and he loses notion of place and time. He doesn’t notice the cross getting closer to his skin until it is too late.

The searing pain that courses through him as the hot metal touches him makes him scream. A nauseated scent of burnt skin travels up from his forearm to his nostrils, and he isn’t able to keep himself in check when the agony flares inside of him. His voice carries on with an animalistic yell, and the windows follow him in his strife, blowing and sending shreds of glass throughout the room. The couches tremble against the walls, the lamp hanging over their heads shaking so strongly that it threatens to fall down onto them. He faintly hears his foster mother screaming.

He doesn’t care anymore. He just wants the pain to be over, but Father Rogers keeps pressing the cross against him until all he can feel is burnt and all he can hear is his own screams. The lamp breaks off its hinges and falls to the floor in between Father Rogers and himself, tearing them apart, breaking the contact between his skin and the cross.

He feels he might be sick – he dry heaves and shivers, and his head feels like exploding. Instead of breaking through it, he allows his pain to take over and he faints, darkness finally engulfing him.

**three. me enamoré por primera vez, nadie me avisó que iba a suceder**

He’s been in an out of the foster home for months after the exorcism, trying his best to escape whenever he felt his powers slipping, keeping a straight face whenever he has to stick around. He doesn’t even remember the last time he’s set foot in it for longer than a couple of days. He doesn’t want them to suspect their stunt only helped him to become stronger, to be more determined to flee the house, the town. 

The planet. 

He begins planning his great escape one Wednesday. He sketches his ideas neatly in a small notebook he keeps away from his foster family, drawing equations and scribbling notes in the margins while he tries not to die from boredom during his Physics class. 

He doesn’t tell Max and Isobel, for they would attempt to talk him out of it – they have a home, a family, friends. Michael only has them, and he knows in due time, he will have to choose, and that choice will come with a big sacrifice. But for now he contents himself with his plans and with the occasional hitchhike to the desert to spend a night searching through the stars what he can't find on Earth. 

The day they celebrate their sixteenth birthday, the Evans want to throw a big party for their twins. He’s invited because Max insists and Isobel pouts until their parents accept the outcast into their home. It's the first time he sets foot in that house with the adults’ knowledge – he's spent some nights after the exorcism, sleeping in a sleeping bag on Max’s room floor, and after one particular beating that left him a black eye and a limp for days. Every time he's managed to sneak out of the house before dawn so the Evans wouldn’t know their children were helping him. Even that doomed camping trip to the desert was a lie the twins told them about attending a boys’ and girls’ party at Katie Long's. 

After an awkward greeting from Mrs Evans, Michael makes a beeline for Max and Isobel, who are gingerly hanging out at the drinks table with the Ortecho sisters. Isobel’s stance is a bit tense, Michael can read her like an open book – she’s never been comfortable around Rosa Ortecho, but Michael knows she’d do anything for Max, even entertain a conversation with her just so he can have the chance of talking to Liz. 

“Hey,” he says when he reaches them, looking his best self in his cleanest shirt and jeans that don’t look like a freight train ran over them. “Happy birthday.”

Isobel takes his greeting for what it really is – a salvation of sorts – and makes an excuse before grabbing his arm and dragging him away from them. “Thanks,” she says when they’re out of hearing range. “And happy birthday to you, too,” she lowers her voice and leans up to place a chaste and lasting kiss on his cheek. “I’m sorry. This year, the party got out of control.”

“It was your time to decide what to do for it,” Michael replies, a small smile playing in his lips, the same smile he reserves only for her. “I’m glad to spend this time with you guys, even if Max is going to waste away with Liz.”

“Don’t get me started on that,” she scrunches her nose. “Liz is fine, but it’s like she comes in a pack with Rosa, and that is more than I can bear.”

“Get over it,” Michael deadpans, shoving her gently. “Max is already looking for you, you better put up your best smile.”

Not long after his words have faded, Max himself finds them across the room full of people, and motions for them to follow him. Without even waiting for them to acknowledge what he’s trying to tell them, Max makes his way out of the living room and into the patio. Michael tries to resist, but Isobel again grabs his arm and pulls him toward the door. “C’mon, Michael. It’s time for birthday presents!”

“I thought we’d said no gifts this year,” he protests.

“So the small bag in your back pocket is not a gift for me?” Isobel asks innocently. “And I’m pretty sure you have something for Max as well.”

“Damned mind reader.”

“Not at all,” she stops abruptly, half way through the crowded room. “I promised I’d never enter your mind, Michael, and I’m keeping that promise. But you should be a bit more cautious, the tip of the bag is showing.”

Michael drops his right hand to his back pocket, feeling how half of the small bag he’s tucked in there is already peeking out. “Dammit.”

“Indeed,” she smiles. “Now, come with me. We have something for you, and I want to see your face when you see it.”

Michael lets her lead the way while he manages to get the bag outside of his pocket. There isn’t much he could do for them this year – he’s been scraping for pennies like mad to be able to get out of the foster house, so he’s settled for a handmade pendant for Isobel and a handmade belt buckle for Max. He hopes they like it.

Once they both are outside, he can outline Max’s silhouette standing across the patio, near the outer exit that leads to a back alley. He is waiting for them. “Isobel’s told you it’s birthday gift time, right?”

Michael reciprocates the smile spreading in Max’s face, and opens the bag he now has dangling from his fingers. “It’s not much,” he excuses himself as he hands each of them a parcel wrapped in brown paper and newspapers cutouts. “But I made them myself.” And if there’s a hint of pride in his voice, he doesn’t feel the need to hide it. They are his family. They get him.

They _love_ him.

Isobel’s delighted squeal brings him back from his thoughts. She’s trying the pendant on her cleavage, as if wondering how long the necklace must be – he hasn’t had the time nor the resources to make her a necklace to attach the pendant to, but she sounds elated with her tear-shaped opal he’s created out of scratch. Max is muttering under his breath at the belt buckle, a square with a bright green stone simulating an emerald right in the center of it.

“Thanks,” he whispers, looking up at his brother. “How did you?” He doesn’t finish his sentence, but it isn’t necessary between them – they always know what the others are thinking. 

“Made them myself,” he explains, hand up to rub the back of his neck. “Thought of what reminded me of you, and went with it. Anything for my little sister and her twin.”

“Right,” Isobel whispers. “Kind of what we’ve done here, actually. Thought of you, and what my big brother needed, and kinda went with it, right, Max?”

Max just nods, motioning for Michael to push the outer door open and step into the alley. And there, in all its glory, Michael sees an old and battered Chevy, barely holding at its hinges. A quick overview lets him know the car has potential, and maybe if he gets his hands on the engine, he can make it revv like a Porsche.

“It’s yours,” Max says in an even voice behind him. “Dad was about to take it to scrapping, so I volunteered to do it, and instead hid it so I could work on it. There’s still some things to be done, but the engine works, and although it’s kind of old, we thought you might like to have it.”

Michael feels his eyes well up with tears. He’s always wanted a way out of foster care, of Roswell, of his misery. He’s always wanted something to call _his_ , and this is the perfect gift. “Thanks,” he manages to mutter, unable to stop himself from reaching out his hand and tracing the outline of the window. “This is,” he struggles to get the words out. “This is so much, and I have just made some trinkets for you.”

“This is not just some trinket, Michael,” Isobel says, hugging him from behind. “This is _you_ , and I’ll wear it always. You know that.”

Max settles a hand on his shoulder, squeezing it slightly, and the three of them fall into an intricate silence that encompasses their whole beings. They speak without words, and they seal a pact that binds them for eternity.

Michael doesn’t notice the pair of eyes that follow him as he re-enters the living room – hazel and awake and _alive_ – and he doesn’t see the same eyes keeping track of his every movement for the whole school year. And if he does, he chooses not to look back, because looking away is his best armor against hope.

On his seventeenth birthday, it is his time to plan the party, and he takes his siblings out for a stargazing session in the Chevy he’s recently tuned up to become a home. He finds life before senior year a shade of positive – he’s landed a part-time job at Sanders’, he’s waiting on college to get back to him about his request, he’s got the world at his feet.

He has his family.

This time, he looks back when he notices those impossibly deep eyes boring holes into his soul, and he finds it highly difficult to look away when he’s been pulled into their light. Michael hopes, for the first time, and allows himself to bask in the good instead of reveling into the bad.

Soon, he’ll find hope is a dangerous thing. Soon he’ll find he should have never allowed himself the chance to peek into a future that wasn’t meant to last.

All his dreams are broken the same way his bones crack under the pressure of a hammer worn with hatred.

**four. bebiendo tequila de cualquier vaso**

Michael is on the verge of nineteen when he bursts into the Wild Pony and takes a seat right at the bar, where Mimi De Luca is tending to her patrons and her daughter Maria is learning her way through the ropes of bartending.

“A beer, please,” he orders, biting out every word as he tips his cowboy hat to them before getting off his head.

“Here we don’t serve alcohol to underage kids, Guerin,” Maria snaps, the cloth in her hand sweeping down the bar more forcefully than needed.

“I need a beer, please,” he repeats, tone softer, this time looking Mimi in the eye. 

“The Pony is the only place in town that allows underage to come in and have fun at the pool,” Mimi tells him, with a glint in her eye he hasn’t seen before. He can feel Maria tensing by her side, but she doesn’t quip in. “I’m not about to lose my license just so you can get wasted way before your age, my child, but I can give you a soda and you can hang around, but I won’t be giving you any alcohol until the day you turn twenty-one. Am I clear?”

He nods shortly, and she pushes a glass towards him, a bottle of Coke next to it. He can feel Maria shaking her head out of the corner of his eye. When he is sure that none of them is paying him any more attention, he takes a bottle of acetone from his pocket and spikes the soda.

Michael comes in almost every day after work, drinks the beverage pushed his way, and leaves. He never initiates any conversations, and neither of them speak to him. 

Since he’s not going to college anymore, and his busted hand has rendered him useless for almost anything, Michael searches for jobs where no one cares about a young kid who wants to make some money. He lands himself a part-time job at Sanders’, fixing the cars for the half-blind man, and although he earns enough money to keep living in his truck, he wishes for more. In the span of six months, he’s able to purchase a trailer and move up to Foster Homestead Ranch when Sanders’ nephew arrives in town demanding for a living and effectively convincing his uncle to fire Michael, quite apologetically, but still.

At the ranch he can keep up with his research for the stars, something he picked up after being hammered down to a pulp, and he feels useful while trotting around, physical effort leaving him so exhausted at the end of the day to even think. He doesn’t like thinking – his mind always supplies images of Isobel dating that cute boy from Mr. Evans’ firm, of Max earning his way up through the Sheriff office. They are happy, they’ve found their place on Earth, they have each other. 

They don’t need him.

Eventually he gets tired of the boring life of a cowboy, so he starts picking up random fights. Whenever he can, he manages to snatch a beer or two – maybe even a sixer – from the other cowboys, and he spikes them with the occasional gush of acetone. And after the third beer, he doesn’t see straight, his legs wobbly and his eyelids heavy, but he still throws a decent sucker punch. Soon enough he’s earned himself a reputation of a drunk fighter who’s always looking for a beating.

By the time he’s twenty, Michael spends more nights in the drunk tank than drinking at home. He’s lost count of the times Max has had to heal his nose after a particular hard blow, or the number of scowls Isobel has thrown his way when they meet up for their weekly dinner. A tradition Michael opts out of the day he’s subjected to a third grade interrogation by none other than Noah Bracken, who turns out wants to marry Isobel as soon as he’s made an associate at the law firm.

Isolated and low, Michael Guerin finds out no one’s ever coming to save him, so he better start on saving himself.

One day he’s already twenty-one, entering the Wild Pony with a different step, cowboy hat already in his hands as he saunters to the bar and claiming his usual spot, looking around for Mimi, only to be met with a blank space.

“DeLuca,” he greets Maria as he sees her dancing behind the counter, cloth in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other as she makes her way to one of her patrons. There’s a question behind her name, one he doesn’t dare to ask, but she hears it nonetheless.

“She won’t be coming back here, Guerin,” she replies, voice low and eyes shining. “I’m taking over from today on.”

“Good,” he smiles sadly, and it’s all the support he can offer to someone he doesn’t really know, but he has the feeling that Maria needs her space and also the notion that there’s someone out there to catch her when she falls.

He can be that. He can be a _friend_.

“Today is your birthday, right?”

“That’s what it says on the papers they filed for me when I got into the group home.” He manages to mask his surprise at her knowing when his birthday is. He reckons it might be because she’s friends with Liz Ortecho, and they’ve both been to enough Evans’ parties to have that knowledge engraved in their brains.

“Fine, then.”

“Fine?” He watches as she turns around, cloth forgotten on the counter, and rummages through the racks until she lets out a hushed _eureka_ under her breath.

“This has always been a safe haven for people who didn’t have one,” Maria sighs as she brings up two shot glasses and a bottle of tequila. “I’m not planning on changing that anytime soon. This one’s on the house. Don’t try to fool me into not paying your tab from now on, Guerin.”

She pours the shots and tips her glass to his before downing the tequila in one gulp. He mirrors her, the liquid burning his throat as his heart stills, silenced.

Numbed.

**five. ahora sé que todo lo que me faltaba apareció contigo**

He hasn’t slept in days. Between their race against the fourth alien and spending his nights staring blankly at the final piece he needs for his console, Michael hasn’t paid much attention to something as petty as _sleeping_.

For the umpteenth time tonight, he reaches out for the glass, watches it glow as the equations and the words dance on the surface. He doesn’t understand any of it, yet he feels oddly attracted to the gleam. The light calls his name, and yet it isn’t the name he identifies with on Earth – it has the musicality of a different language, of another place, of another time.

His language, his place, _his_ time.

Rubbing a hand over his face, he gets up from the corner where he’s spent the most part of an hour, moping about his existence up until this moment in time. He’s been doing a lot of thinking these days, trying to understand how he went from being the genius who got a full ride to college to the town lowlife who no one trusts or cares about. The pain in his chest tightens around his heart, viciously gripping and squeezing until it’s hard to breathe around the lump in his throat.

He knows the drill by now. Whenever he feels that particular pain, that particular lump – he knows he will stop breathing after a while of attempting to draw in shaky patches of air, then he will stumble around, fumbling for something, _anything_ , to keep him grounded. In the end he will pass out, falling to the ground where he will remain until he comes to his senses again.

It’s been a sequence he’s got used to in the past few months, ever since Alex Manes came back to Roswell to drag him on a rollercoaster ride of emotions. He’s tired of this game, he’s tired of secrets, he’s tired of being played around as if his feelings don’t matter to anyone anymore.

Maybe they never mattered to begin with.

He feels isolated from everything, right here in his bunker beneath the surface, where no one can see him losing his mind. Isobel has Noah, and once they figure out what’s going on with her they’ll probably have their own happy ending. And Max has just recently found out that Liz is as unable to remain unattached to his lips as he’s been unable to keep himself away from her.

So that leaves him alone – alone with his spaceship blueprints and his glowing pieces of glass, his equations and his broken heart, too exhausted to even flinch at the mere thought of Alex Manes stomping on it _once again_. Michael’s lost count of the endless times when he’s seen that back retreating, away from him, into Jesse Manes’ orbit. Alex holding the last piece he needed to feel the planet has been the final stab in his wrecked soul.

And yet he can’t make himself hate Alex, not even a little bit. He still loves him – the idea of undying love he’s been harboring since that kiss at the museum – although he wishes he could turn around and forget all about the butterflies in his stomach or the fleeting feeling of belonging he has whenever he catches sight of those eyes that followed him all the way through high school.

His breathing comes out ragged as he tries to control the panic rising in his throat. He balances himself with a hand shakily pushing into the nearest wall, mouth half open and eyes half closed. He’s in dire need of air, so desperate he’d kill for it, and just when he thinks he won’t make it through the night – maybe even through this particular moment – a flash of a memory crawls its way into his mind and soul stops screaming.

He’s standing on the edge of a cot, surrounded by tools and notebooks, his backpack propped against a wall and his hands full of guitar and music. He’s playing like he has no other worry in the world, as though the notes synched themselves with his heartbeat, slowing down its rate and lifting his spirits. Life courses through his veins in the form of treble clefs and he lets everything that’s ever hurt him slip away through the deft movements of his fingers on the frets. He leans in, eyes closed, as he feels the music leaving him and fly towards the person sitting next to him in this cot.

It doesn’t matter how many times he relives this memory, how many times he’s wished for it to change so it wouldn’t hurt that much when he comes back to his current reality. Every time he closes his eyes and tries to find his balance, those eyes haunt him and make him feel whole. There’s no way he can escape what he can only describe as cosmic.

 _Fate_.

Alex is on the tip of his tongue, etched in the seams of his soul, soaring through the pain, saving him from himself. 

When he reins in his breathing, he dares a look at the console, now complete with the missing piece he’s left on the table, near enough the rest so it can attach itself onto them. Blinking, he feels he won’t have the chance to know what it’s like to have a family and a home beyond this galaxy.

He’s already found his, but he’s been too stupid – too proud, too much of a coward – and now he’s missed his chance. He knows he will never be ready to leave the planet where he’s found purpose in a faithless life.

When he gets the call from none other than Kyle Valenti, for a fraction of a second he thinks about bolting – he doesn’t want to be trapped in whatever adventure Valenti is darting into, and he isn’t keen on spending time with Alex either, something he has the feeling that’s going to happen if he accepts.

He grips his phone tighter against his ear, hesitating, inwardly cursing himself for his feeble resistance.

He says _yes_ in a low voice.

**plus one. me voy sintiendo cada vez más vivo**

The sun is setting when he gets out of the Airstream, wiping his hands on the dirty shirt he’s peeled off his back a couple of hours ago, after he’s sweated through it while packing the last boxes. Michael scans his surroundings, the place where the lawn chairs used to be, the fire pit that will no longer hold flames. He’s about to wave goodbye to it all, and it’s going to be harder than anticipated, even for him, who’s been planning his big escape ever since he was fourteen.

“I’m going to miss you, kid,” Sanders says from his spot seated on a chair at his left, a couple of feet away from the trailer.

“Yeah, I’m going to miss this too, and you,” he concedes.

“Any chance you getting back to us?”

“I don’t think so,” he replies around the sudden lump in his throat. He hasn’t expected to be overwhelmed with the idea of never coming back to Roswell. He’s been preparing himself for this moment his whole life, and yet the tears threaten to spill with every word he says.

“Safe travels,” Sanders wishes him before standing up and leaving. Although they have a good relationship – rekindled after Sanders’ nephew outed himself as the swindler he was – neither of them feels comfortable with any kind of display of affection. So there’s no hug from Sanders, and nothing else but a quick nod of his head before he walks back to the main office, leaving Michael alone standing on the steps to the Airstream.

He should go to bed early tonight, because he has a long journey starting tomorrow, but he can’t bring himself to care. In the hot July night, Michael stares up at the sky and wishes for the stars to show him the way.

He doesn’t know how long he’s standing awkwardly on the steps, but his neck hurts when he hears the sound of a car pulling up and a door closing as heels scratch against the gravel. “Hey, Isobel,” he greets.

“I can’t believe you stood us up for your own farewell party, Michael,” she says as greeting, something that’s not anger seeping through her words.

He slowly moves down his head to even it with her, and he sees the pain in her eyes. He hasn’t meant to skip the party without warning, but she should know better than to expect him to do as told. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to tell you in time I wasn’t going,” he says softly. “I’m not in the mood for a farewell party.”

“Why not?” she asks, gingerly walking to the steps and sitting down on the last one, close to his feet. He sits down as well. “Everyone who’s important to you is at the Pony, waiting for you to show up so they can wish you a safe trip.”

“Who’s _everyone_?”

“Oh, you know, the usual ones,” Isobel replies carefully. “Max and Liz, Valenti, Noah, Maria, me. Oh, and Alex, if I’d been able to get a hold of him. I don’t know where this man’s staying these days. I haven’t been able to reach his phone, and Liz says he hasn’t been at the cabin.”

“Is that so?” He tries to mask his amusement behind a smile that he’s sure Isobel’s not buying when she turns to stare at him.

“You said he’s important to you. Something silly like him being your _other half_ ,” she’s even making quotation marks with her fingers in the air as she speaks. “So yeah, I wanted him to be there, but what’s the use of trying if the main guest is not coming anyway?”

Michael doesn’t reply immediately. He ponders how to explain to her that he doesn’t want to bid farewell to anyone because it feels so final. He’s not ready for it to be definitive.

“I’m going to miss you too, Iz,” he settles for saying. “It’s okay to be sad about us going separate ways, but you know I’m always going to be with you.”

“I know. It hurts still, you know?” she sighs, resting her head against his legs. “I wish you weren’t going alone.”

“I’m not,” Michael confesses, bracing himself for the aftermath of his words. When their meaning down on her, she spins around so fast he fears she might fall from the steps. She levels herself and stares into his eyes, as if searching for something.

“Alex?” she asks, but it sounds more of an afterthought than a question. “Of course.” She nods to herself. “Albuquerque is just shy of three hours away, I might even come up visiting once you’ve settled.” 

“It’s only for a couple of years, Iz,” he retorts. “I’ll get my degree sooner than you can imagine, and we’ll be back here in no time.”

“Don’t want you to forget about us.”

“I could never forget about you, Isobel,” he promises. “You’re stuck with me.”

She shakes her head, one tear falling down her cheek, before leaning in and kissing his cheek. “Be careful tomorrow, please. Call me when you arrive. Behave. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” She stands up and takes a couple of steps towards her car. Suddenly she stops and turns around.

There’s a glint of some undefined feeling passing through them that makes Michael stand up and reach her, pulling Isobel into a tight embrace with no air between them, crushing them both to ashes inside.

“I love you, little sister,” he whispers in her hair, kissing her had softly.

“I love you too, big brother.”

As her car dusts away, Michael allows himself a last glance at the stars and enters the trailer, closing the door at his back with a soft click. He makes his way to the bunk, stripping off his jeans and standing in just his boxers, before he joins Alex’s sleeping form on the bed, where he’s passed out about three hours ago from the exhaustion of having to pack everything in between kisses and the sex that ensues every time they are near each other. “Scoot over,” he whispers. “Bed hoarder.”

“You love that about me,” comes the mumbled reply as Alex makes space for him by pressing his back against the wall.

“Yeah,” he whispers back, lying beside him and reaching out to take him into his embrace. “I do love you.”

They fall asleep together, heart beating in synch, the promise of a future together in their horizon.

**Author's Note:**

> TRANSLATIONS:  
>  _5 sentidos_ ~ 5 senses  
>  _rompiendo la fila si tú te vas_ ~ breaking the row if you leave  
>  _yo nunca he sido un santo, no vendo lecciones de contrabando_ ~ i’ve never been a saint, don’t sell smuggling lessons  
>  _luché con mis fantasmas, todos los que algún día me gritaban que renunciara a todo lo que he sido_ ~ i fought my ghosts, the ones who once yelled at me to give up everything I’ve been  
>  _me enamoré por primera vez, nadie me avisó que iba a suceder_ ~ i fell in love for the first time, no one warned me it would happen  
>  _bebiendo tequila de cualquier vaso_ ~ drinking tequila from any glass  
>  _ahora sé que todo lo que me faltaba apareció contigo_ ~ now i know everything i was missing showed up with you  
>  _me voy sintiendo cada vez más vivo_ ~ I’m feeling more and more alive


End file.
